Rob Pope, a former security specialist at Barclays, HSBC, and the London Metropolitan Police Department, will conduct live cryptocurrency hacking sessions in a bid to enlighten budding cryptocurrency investors and traders on how best to safeguard their digital wealth.

During his previous job posts, Pope was tasked with ethically finding flaws in a system. The security specialist is now the CTO and co-founder of Dogtown media, a mobile technology company.

The live cryptocurrencyhacking sessions will happen during this year’s South By South West (SXSW) conferenceand festival which is held yearly in Austin, Texas.

This year, the conference runs from March 8 to March 17 and brings together a global audience interested in technology, music, and film. SXSW is dubbed as the world’s largest event in film, music, and technology.

According to a pressrelease:

In Pope’s SXSW session, he will examine why this false sense of security exists with blockchain technology. He’ll also show attendees why cryptocurrency is not as secure as the general public believes with a live hacking demonstration of how hackers are able to steal cryptocurrency. Pope will also cover processes and protocols which can be used to properly protect crypto users.

The information contained in the press release concerning the live cryptocurrency hacking sessions does not contain the details of the hacking sessions. However, a keen interrogation of the press release captures Rob blaming the weak blockchain encryption methods for the loss of over 15 billion U.S dollars worth of virtual currency.

Pope’s livecryptocurrency hacking sessions will take place on March 15 and presumablytouch on how key loggers are being used by unethical hackers to cause misery tocrypto users.

Do you think the livecryptocurrency hacking sessions will help crypto users to improve the security oftheir digital wealth?

Ethereum [ETH], the second largest cryptocurrency by market cap, continued to stay in the spotlight after a recent report by Longhash revealed the top …

Ethereum [ETH], the second largest cryptocurrency by market cap, continued to stay in the spotlight after a recent report by Longhash revealed the top projects that recorded the largest amount of donations. The report stated that they found a total of 21 addresses assigned for donations after searching for “donate”, followed by “accounts” on Etherscan.

The report further stated that they gathered all the information of the total amount of coins donated to these 21 addresses by looking into the historical queries of the addresses. It also stated that there were project addresses that were marked for donations, but did not receive any ether, speculating the reason to be the project’s failure in attracting “any interest” from the community.

Based on the report, the addresses that received the largest amount of donation belonged to FoundationTipJar. This address received 4,570.89 ETH, which was equivalent to $600,660.65, at press time. The report added that this address could be the donation address of Ethereum Foundation, the platform that strives towards promoting and improving Ethereum and base layer research. It stated that this could be the reason for the “unsurprising recipient of community attention and support”.

Taking the second position was “labeled MyEtherWallet”. MyEtherWallet aka MEW is a free, client-side interface that enables users to interact with the Ethereum blockchain. The platform provides users with wallet support and also allows them to interact with smart contracts. The addressed had a total of 1935.60 ETH, which is equivalent to $255,692.

Source: LongHash

The third position was taken by an address that belonged to WhiteHatDonation, which received around 1453.55 ETH as a donation. The project focuses on introducing blockchain technology to “more non-profit spaces.”

ChainSafe, a project contributing towards the development of the Ethereum 2.0 ecosystem, was also among the top projects. According to the report, the address received around 1000 ETH, which could be the ETH donated by Vitalik Buterin, the creator of Ethereum. In December 2018, Buterin donated Ether to three projects, Prsymatic Labs, Sigma Prime and ChainSafe. All three projects received a donation of over 1000 ETH.

As an electronic market maker, B2C2 provides liquidity on exchange platforms by actively buying or selling at the prices it quotes for virtual currency …

IN the first legal dispute in Singapore involving the bitcoin cryptocurrency, the Singapore International Commercial Court (SICC) found that operator of virtual currency exchange platform Quoine had wrongfully reversed seven trades from electronic market maker B2C2 in April 2017.

The SICC in a judgement issued on Thursday found the Singapore-registered platform liable for breach of contract and breach of trust for unilaterally reversing B2C2’s orders made at an abnormal exchange rate.

B2C2 had on April 19, 2017, placed seven orders to sell ethereum for bitcoin at a rate of 10 bitcoins for one ethereum. The trades were reversed the following day.

As an electronic market maker, B2C2 provides liquidity on exchange platforms by actively buying or selling at the prices it quotes for virtual currency pairs, thereby generating trading revenue.

Quoine countered that a glitch in its program leading up to the disputed trades had made it unable to access external market price data for the two cryptocurrencies in question, ethereum and bitcoin. Due to the glitch, the program stopped creating or placing new orders involving these currencies on the platform, causing issues with liquidity and, therefore, problems with the orders made by B2C2.

The SICC having found in B2C2’s favour, however, declined to order Quoine to transfer the bitcoins in question to B2C2 at today’s price, which is substantially higher than that in April 2017 when the trades were executed, saying it would result in substantial hardship to Quoine.

Instead, B2C2 will be compensated with an amount to be agreed upon by the feuding parties. Should they fail to come to an agreement, the court will assess damages at a subsequent hearing.

Quoine told The Business Times that it was disappointed with the ruling. Its chief executive Mike Kayamori said: “We are reviewing the judgement and considering our options, including the possibility of an appeal.”

There is a key declining channel in place withresistance at 0.0344BTC on the hourly chart of the ETH/BTC pair (data feed fromPoloniex).

The pair might soon break the 0.0345BTCresistance to start a solid upward move in the near term.

Ethereum Price Chart Analysis

After trading as low as 0.0334BTC, Ethereum price started an upward move against bitcoin. The price traded above the 0.0350BTC resistance, but it faced a strong resistance near the 0.0360BTC level and later started a solid downward move.

Looking at the chart,the price traded as high as 0.0360BTC and later traded below the 0.0355BTC and0.0350BTC support levels. There was a close below the 0.0350BTC support and the100 simple moving average (4-hours).

Besides, there was a break belowthe 61.8% Fib retracement level of the last wave from the 0.0334BTC low to0.0360BTC high. More importantly, it seems like there is a key declining channelin place with resistance at 0.0344BTC on the hourly chart of the ETH/BTC pair.

The pair recently spiked belowthe 76.4% Fib retracement level of the last wave from the 0.0334BTC low to0.0360BTC high. Therefore, there is a risk of a downside move towards the0.0334BTC swing low before the price could climb higher.

On the upside, a break above the channelresistance and 0.0345BTC is needed for buyers to gain traction. The next keyresistance is at 0.0350BTC and the 100 SMA, above which the price is likely toclimb towards the 0.0360BTC resistance area.

Overall, Ethereum price may decline further, but downsidescould be contained near 0.0334BTC against bitcoin. Finally, there are highchances of an upside break in ETH above the 0.0345BTC and 0.0350BTC resistancelevels in the coming sessions.

The decentralized identity startup Civic has released a new vending machine that sells beer for virtual currencies. The company showcased the …

The decentralized identity startup Civic has released a new vending machine that sells beer for virtual currencies. The company showcased the vending machine a few months ago and it now aims at selling them around the world. Each of them has a price of $15,000 and they are available for pre-order.

Vending Machines Selling Beer for Bitcoin

The Civic BD10 Vending Machine enables users to dispense age or identity-gated products. The payment solution is already available with the machine. Each of the machines will come turn-key, plug-and-play and ready to stock with a product. Each machine has a capacity of 150-500 items depending on the size they have.

During a conversation with CoinDesk, Titus Capilnean from Civic said that the machines sold 150 beers per day making $7,600 in sales. The tokens from the sales were airdropped to SXSW attendees by the company.

According to Capilnean, iPhone users with the Civic Pay app downloaded and with a verified identity received enough CVC to buy a beer. Each of the beers had a price of 200 CVC each.

The transactions made through the application are all settled in virtual currencies, and the idea is to interact with them in a very easy way.

Although Capilnean did not provide information about potential partners, he said that the firm is talking with different firms to work with Civic’s products in places that need an improved alcohol distribution. Sporting events and bars could be places that could use these vending machines to verify the age of the individuals purchasing the drinks. Moreover, music festivals could provide an immediate opportunity for the firm.

Civic is currently the 137th largest digital currency exchange with a market capitalization of $26 million. Each CVC coin can be purchased for $0.0759.